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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24930748">Philopatry</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton'>Areiton</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Sam Wilson, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Recovering Sam Wilson, Sam Wilson Feels, Sam Wilson-centric, Sam needs a hug and probably a lot of therapy, Steve Rogers &amp; Sam Wilson Friendship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:20:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,043</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24930748</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"I want to be safe," he says. "But I'm not." <br/>"Then why come here? Why put me at risk?" <br/>Something flickers in his eyes, little boy lost and utterly cold, and it makes Sam want to give the dude a hug and also pull his sidearm. <br/>"I have no reason to hurt you," Winter says. "I don't <i>want</i> to hurt you," Bucky adds, earnestly.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers &amp; Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>343</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>HIIIII! Welcome to my post-TWS fic, about 6 years late to the party. Whatever. Fic is finished, and I'll be updating every Friday through the end of July! Lemme know what you think!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It isn't as simple as Steve makes it sound--the river is still burning, the air dark with smoke. There's a military presence in DC that reminds him of Iraq and a curfew and the roads out of town are wall to wall traffic. All flights have been grounded, and he knows enough about security protocols to know that anyone even close to the Presidential line of succession is tucked into a very nice bunker right now. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The city is locked up tight and Steve is vibrating with impatience to go, to leave, to get this dog and pony show on the road. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You can't just drop off the face of the earth, Rogers!" Tony Stark snarls. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because Tony </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking </span>
  </em>
  <span>Stark. Apparently no-fly zones don't mean shit when you are one of the richest men in the world and have your own private suit of armor. Which is currently standing sentinel behind Tony as he and Steve fight. "How the hell do you think that'll go down, huh? Cap blows up DC and runs off to parts unknown for god only knows how long--"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The longer we argue about the longer I'll be gone," Steve snaps back, belligerent. He's been wound tight as a drum since before Insight and DC went tits up, but after--after, it's like he's only got the one setting, the one that screams action, that screams </span>
  <em>
    <span>move</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam would sympathize, really, it's only that--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You have to think," Tony says, and all the fight has drained out of him, and he's standing there, hands in his pockets, exhausted. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The man is still recovering from that bullshit down in Florida that Sam read about, and now--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I--I can't leave him out there," Steve says, helplessly. Tony steps closer, into his space and oh--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fuck. How the </span>
  <em>
    <span>hell</span>
  </em>
  <span> had Sam missed </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We'll bring him home, baby," Tony murmurs into Steve's throat, and Steve's shoulders do a strange shaking that makes Sam's gut tighten and he looks away. He shouldn't be here, not for this. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He slips away, and he doesn't think either of them notice. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>His house looks, remarkably, untouched. He expected as much, lives far enough away from the Potomac that he wasn't worried about damage coming down in his cramped backyard--but it feels almost surreal, standing in his clean, shiny kitchen, like the past week hasn't happened, like the whole goddamn city and his tidy little life hasn't been upended completely. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Riley, he thinks, absurdly, would laugh so fucking hard. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He pulls chicken broth from the freezer and boils it, adds some shredded chicken and methodically chops up some vegetables that haven't turned. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wasn't even gone long enough for the damn cilantro to go bad. He starts laughing, and he has to put down the knife because he's laughing so damn hard he can't see, a hysterical edge to it that even he can hear, and it worries him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What the actual fuck is he even </span>
  <em>
    <span>doing</span>
  </em>
  <span>? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The broth has boiled down to almost too low and he huffs, adding water and some bullion and soy sauce before dropping some rice noodles in. The scent of it--of jalapenos and cilantro and green onion, of boiling chicken and noodles, it all combines into something soothing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Riley made it, every time one of them was sick, and he isn't, he isn't sick, but--it's soothing. Having comfort food. He takes his bowl of noodles into the living room, wraps himself carefully in a blanket and stares at the blank TV, waiting for it to cool enough to eat. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Which is how he sees him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't scream, and Sam really thinks he deserves some credit for that. He sighs a little, and says, "If you're going to kill me, wait til I've finished my damn noodles." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The shadow in the TV, all long hair and pale face and darkness, goes still and Sam huffs. His noodles are damn delicious, but he's not sure he can sit and slurp them with the goddamn Winter Soldier lurking behind him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You hungry," he says, instead of anything smart, like, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Steve ain’t here </span>
  </em>
  <span>or </span>
  <em>
    <span>what do you want </span>
  </em>
  <span>or even keeping his mouth shut and reaching for his gun. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His eyes are pale and wide and scared, Sam notice, stormy sky eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Little boy lost, his mama used to call it, when he looked at her like that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The noodles might be a bit much til we know what's goin' on with your stomach and shit," Sam says. "But the broth is pretty good."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Winter Soldier blinks at him. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The thing of it is. It's not </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> surreal. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On the list of crazy fucking things that have happened this week, the Winter Soldier sipping chili oil laced chicken broth in a dark corner of his living room is really--not that high. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He thinks he needs a new place to jog, and not just cause the Mall is covered in still smoking helicarrier wreckage. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He thinks he needs new friends, too. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Soldier puts his bowl down when Sam does, his eyes bright and tracking Sam's every move and Sam--Sam concentrates on the pleasant burn of his lips from jalapenos, the warmth in his belly from soup, the comforting heavy weight of the blanket his mama made him wrapped around his shoulders. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not the icy cold of being pinned by that storm sky gaze. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He's not here," Sam says, softly. "And if you're here to finish your mission--it's not gonna go so well, buddy." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Soldier is quiet for a long time, long enough that Sam's worry ratchets up and he thinks about reaching for his phone because this is so far above his pay grade that--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You protected him," the Soldier says, his voice rusty. "On--on the ships." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam nods, slowly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I read--in the museum--I read that I protected him, once." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His heart does this thing, a tumble squeeze that he remembers because he got damn familiar with it, when Riley was his wingman.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah," Sam says softly. "Yeah, you did." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bucky blinks at him. "I don't want to finish my mission." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's not much. It's barely anything, especially given the fear that's beacon bright in Bucky's eyes, the tight grip of his hands on his knees. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But, Sam thinks. It's a start. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The gear he's in is filthy, smells of blood and sewage and jet fuel, and it's making Sam's nose hurt, now that the scent of his noodles is wearing away. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You think you could shower?" he asks. He hasn't read the file yet--had enough trouble keeping Steve together after he did, but he knows that whatever was in it, there's a mountain of trauma in a man's body, and he doesn't know what exactly will trip those wires. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Soldier blinks at him, and Sam sighs, palms a blade from under his coffee table--and that'll teach his baby sister to give him shit about where he keeps his weapons--and offers it up, hilt first. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He's got to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>insane</span>
  </em>
  <span>, arming the damn Winter Soldier in his own home. "You got that, if you need it for anything. But you ain't sleepin' in my sheets unless you shower," he says, bluntly and the Soldier blinks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It takes almost an hour and there's a worrying blankness in the Soldier when Sam turns the water off, and hauls him from the shower stall. He's shivering, his teeth chattering but he's docile, standing unmoving where Sam puts him, his blank eyes fixed on his feet and the water dripping around him in a giant puddle. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I should definitely tell Steve," Sam mumbles, and the Soldier grips his wrist, a bruise tight grip that makes his heart rate jump through the fuckin' roof. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Don't--don't--" he stumbles over the words. "Do not report," he says, stilted and pleading and Sam stares at him, wide-eyed and disbelieving. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You want me to keep this to myself." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He is my mission," the Soldier recites, words that sound rote and also desperate. His eyes are frightened. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam sighs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Dammit, Barnes." </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He puts the Soldier in his guest bedroom. He's not sure what the hell else he's supposed to do with a murderous, unstable rogue assassin. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he's too damn tired to do anything else. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he puts the Soldier in his guest bedroom and at the door he pauses, looks back at James Barnes sitting on his clean linens, barefoot and wearing Sam's sweats, and he asks, "Why did you come here?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Soldier looks at him. "You protect him," he says, like that is enough. Like that is reason to land in Sam's life, like that makes Sam </span>
  <em>
    <span>safe</span>
  </em>
  <span>, when the entire goddamn Army and Air Force and all mobile Avengers are hunting for </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> man, right this second. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He nods and goes to bed, and stubbornly doesn't allow himself to think about the fact that Barnes is </span>
  <em>
    <span>right</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam isn't calling in reinforcements, isn't telling Steve. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He fed and bathed a goddamn assassin, and tucked him into bed, and he is gonna sleep two doors away and sure he's got a gun under his pillow, but he's under no fucking illusions about what that will do if Barnes decides to try to kill him in his sleep. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I am just as stupid as the white boys I hang around," he mumbles into his pillow and promptly passes the fuck out. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The house is still and silent, when he wakes, the only sign of his guest the rumpled blanket on his guest bed and a neatly folded pile of sweats with a tac knife on top of it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Barnes is gone, in the wind, sometime in the night, and he thinks, with startling clarity, that he can </span>
  <em>
    <span>never</span>
  </em>
  <span> tell Steve that Barnes came to him. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Two days later, Tony Stark has pulled enough strings and thrown enough tantrums and Steve has scowled his disapproval at enough politicians--the quinjet takes off, with Steve and Sam in the belly of the beast, and they veer off, headed to Europe, and a lead on HYDRA. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He takes Bucky's knife with him. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They spend six weeks in Europe, chasing leads through the underbelly of cities he's heard about on news programs and war documentaries. It's a trial by fire that's different than the one they went through in DC. </p><p>Dragging down a clandestine coup to overthrow a government was a sprint, a blitzkrieg kind of war, over and done before the aftermath really hit home, and it was only in the shock and awe after effects, when DC was in ruins and the government scrambling for some kind of sense of it all that Sam really got a chance to say, <em> what the fuck </em>. </p><p>To look at the man he was chasing and gauge if it was a good decision or not. </p><p>This--this is a different kind of thing. This is trench warfare, digging into a safehouse for days and weeks before a midnight lead sends them careening across a country or two to slam through a HYDRA bolt hole, leaving wreckage and flames in their wake before slipping back into their own hidey-hole. </p><p>This is weeks of pouring over intel, bad food and worse lodgings and getting to know another guy so quick and deep it bred a strange kind of intimacy, the kind of ride or die shit that he had only ever had with Riley. </p><p>This is what he learns about Steve Rogers in six weeks of chasing Bucky Barnes: he's a sassy asshole. He always drinks the last of the coffee and never makes a new pot. He talks dirty anytime he gets on the phone with Tony for more than three minutes  and never seems to care that Sam is in the same room. He is physically incapable of throwing away food, even food he hates, sleeps under about ten blankets, reads constantly and adores music but hates movies, and will spend hours upon hours in the exact same spot in a museum, if Sam doesn't move him along. </p><p>He learns that Steve has nightmares six nights out of seven and refuses to talk about them, learns about Bucky at six and eight and twelve and fifteen and all the years between, learns about Sarah Rogers and the forties and the war and the pain of dying in the ice and the weight of a mantle he asked for but didn't really understand. </p><p>Six weeks, Sam figues, is just a drop in the bucket of knowing someone, but six weeks with Steve and Sam thinks he knows enough to know--they're going home, for now. But Steve isn't going to <em> stop </em> looking, <em> can't </em> stop looking. </p><p>He'll burn the world to the ground, to bring Bucky Barnes home, and stand in the ashes with not a single regret. </p><p>"You can't," Sam tells him, that last night, when they're waiting for Tony and the quinjet and Steve is vibrating with impatience, to go back to Tony and New York, and to go on searching for a ghost. </p><p>Steve hasn't quite wrapped his head around the idea that Bucky will come home when Bucky is damn well ready, and they're just wasting time and resources and Steve's very finite amount of patience, in the meantime. </p><p>"You can't spend your whole life looking for him." </p><p>"I can't not look for him," Steve says. </p><p>"Then let me," Sam counters, sharp and so fucking obvious there's exasperation in his voice. "Let me do this, while you save the world, Steve. I <em> can </em>, and frankly man--you can't." </p><p>Steve stares at him, for a long time, and then, finally, when Sam thinks he'll turn down the offer--he nods. </p><p>"Ok." </p><p> </p><p>~*~ </p><p> </p><p>He stumbles into his house in DC, the sound of quinnjet already fading, and the exhaustion hits him, hard, like a fist to the gut, doubling him over. He has just enough presence of mind to throw the locks, send an all clear to Steve and collapse into his bed. </p><p> </p><p>~*~ </p><p> </p><p>He wakes once, when the sun is bright and headache inducing in the afternoon sky, and stumbles in his bare feet to the kitchen for a bottle of Gatorade, before he strips out of his jeans and cruddy smelling shirt and falls face first into his couch. </p><p>The last thing he thinks, before sleep tugs him under, is that he doesn't remember taking off his damn boots. </p><p> </p><p>~*~ </p><p> </p><p>The next time he wakes, it's to piss and he feels somewhat human. There are a dozen missed calls and texts on his phone, but nothing so urgent that he feels the need to respond quite yet. </p><p>Thirty-six hours of sleep, and he still feels a little bit like death warmed over, but he's got enough energy to rummage through his kitchen and scowl at the sad state of it. </p><p>He should just move to New York, to the Tower, like Steve keeps nudging him to do. </p><p>It's just after nine p.m., so late--but not so late he can't order a pizza. He orders two large pizzas with everything, a side of garlic knots and wings because those are always better the second day, and then heads to the bathroom to shower while he waits for food. </p><p>His boots are lined up neatly by his bed, and the sight is so strange, it makes him pause, before moving thoughtfully into his bathroom. </p><p>There's other things, he thinks, standing in the shower. The Gatorade and fresh fruit in the fridge. The bottle of Advil he found on the counter, when he stumbled through in a sleep-deprived haze. The phone on the charger. </p><p>He relaxes a little, a contented noise slipping free. </p><p>He had wondered, chasing shadows around Europe, if Barnes would ever go back to his house. </p><p>Now he has to wonder how much of the past six weeks his house really sat empty. </p><p>Sam emerges, dripping and pulls on a pair of old sweat pants, just in time to get the door and settles in front of the TV. He sends a quick text to Steve to let him know he's still alive, and another to his Mama promising a visit soon, before he reaches for a slice of pizza. </p><p>There's a quiet shift in the air, something he only recognizes because he's spent so long on edge and in war zones, and he nods at the box. "Help yourself, man," he says, and takes a bite. </p><p>He's almost finished with his first slice when Barnes slips close enough to snag the pizza box, stealing one quickly and flicking the olives off with a mildly disgruntled look. </p><p>Sam looks him over, chewing obnoxiously on his crust. The dude looks--not good, really. Looks too on edge, too haunted and tired to look <em> good </em>, but he's in clean clothes that fit him, and not carrying any visible weapons, and his metal arm is covered by the sleeve of his shirt and the glove on his hand. </p><p>He looks almost normal. Like a vet returning from the sandbox, a little fucked up and a little haunted--but alright. </p><p>Surviving. </p><p>Walking wounded, Sam thinks, a wry twist of his lips. </p><p>He cracks open the garlic knots and watches a fucking assassin perk up like a oversized puppy, and hides his smile. </p><p>Looks like he'll need to figure lunch out after all. </p><p>They eat quietly, Ancient Aliens playing a low background noise, and when Sam returns to the living room after trashing the boxes and putting the remains of the pizza in the fridge, Barnes is standing by the window, peering out from behind Sam's curtains. "It was being watched," he says, softly, and Sam startles. </p><p>He still isn't used to Bucky's voice, the sweet rough pitch of it, like a record player crackle. </p><p>"Yeah, uh, Nat--she said that'd be happening. Everyone wants to blame Insight on someone," he says, shrugging. </p><p>"Natasha. The Widow." Barnes twitches away from the window to frown at him. "She's dangerous." </p><p>"Mmm. She's a friend, though. So." </p><p>Barnes chooses not to remark on that. "The surveillance will resume, now that you're back. They come every time I stay here." </p><p>"You do that a lot?" Sam asks, casually, and Barnes gives him a mocking little smirk, which--ok. That's fair. That was a heavy handed attempt, he'll admit it. Not his best work. </p><p>"There's a list, on the phone. Bases, coordinates. If Rogers is going to continue looking--" </p><p>"We could tell him," Sam says, gently. "It'd probably be easier, if he knew that you were here. That you're safe." </p><p>"I'm not," Barnes says, and it's not violent. It's--empty. </p><p>Sad. </p><p>"I want to be safe," he says. "But I'm not." </p><p>"Then why come here? Why put me at risk." </p><p>Something flickers in his eyes, little boy lost and utterly cold, and it makes Sam want to give the dude a hug and also pull his sidearm. </p><p>"I have no reason to hurt you," Winter says. "I don't <em> want </em> to hurt you," Bucky adds, earnestly. </p><p>Sam stares at him, until he blinks, and shifts, and steps away from the window, closer to the couch, and asks. "Are you gonna tell Rogers?" </p><p>Steve will burn the world, looking for him. </p><p>But maybe--maybe not yet. Maybe Sam's bought Bucky a little bit of time. </p><p>"No," he says. "Not yet." </p><p>Something bright and hopeful and relieved fills up Barnes' gaze, and Sam nods at the other end of the couch. "Sit down, man, you're making my head hurt." </p><p> </p><p>~*~ </p><p> </p><p>He falls asleep with the taste of pizza and beer still heavy on his tongue, with the sound of Ancient Aliens playing low in the background, and the pressure of a warm thigh against his foot, the weight of a metal hand on his ankle, and he slept better than he had in years.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry for the delay on this!! My beloved laptop died on Friday (RIP, brickbaby) and I spent yesterday in a research fueled shopping sprial and only realized I forgot the update at like. 1am. Here you go though!!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Chasing down the remains of Hydra alone is a strange business. Sometimes, he'll recruit a PJ he knows from his days of active duty. There's one mission where War Machine flanks him, wordless, and covers his six as he clears an already decimated base. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's surreal, in the best way possible. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After the mission, when he is sooty and jittery with adrenaline, Rhodes introduces himself formally, drags him back to a local vacation home and winery that Stark owns in northern Italy. They spend a wine soaked night discussing their respective idiots in love, and Sam's nursing a pretty nice crush when Rhodes vanishes to report to the brass. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Most missions though--most threads Natasha sends up, ready to be tugged, he unravels alone. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And when he's out there, chasing a ghost, he thinks--is Barnes in DC still? Is he safe? He wonders if Barnes found a good place for garlic knots and if he'd like the pasta salad Riley taught him to make, and what his mama would think of all this, if he ever called home. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He keeps his head down, his feet on the ground and his thoughts to himself and chases a ghost. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The thing is--most of the bases he raids are already in ruins. He's always a step or two behind Barnes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The office building in Cairo is no different. It's burning, when he arrives, and he takes a few hours to make nice with the locals, before he's given the go-ahead to do his own sweep. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"There was no one in the building," the local law enforcement says. "There's no reason it should have been burning." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It went up too quickly," another adds, frowning. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam nods, and smiles, and keeps his gaze fixed on these nice strangers with severe, confused faces, and not scanning the rooflines, looking for sunlight glinting on metal, shaggy hair and icy blue. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shakes that thought and walks through the wreckage. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There's something about Hydra safehouses and bases that makes him feel simultaneously closer to Barnes and almost violently sick. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This one--this one has a small cell, thick steel walls in a tiny square and he steps into it, barely fitting through the narrow doorway. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even with the steel door open, it feels too small, claustrophobic and tight, like the walls are closing in on him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There's dents, in the steel. Blood smeared and dried there. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How long did they keep him here? How long did he hammer at the walls with metal and flesh, while the walls pressed too tight? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He touches a finger, gentle, to the imprint of a fist against the steel and is viciously glad that the base was empty. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It means he can still track down the operatives and kill them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Anything?" Steve asks, his voice eager. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam is standing in a slaughterhouse. There are four dead Hydra operatives in this room alone, and he left two scientists cuffed in the room with that fucking chair, once he'd made sure they didn't have a fucking cynaicde capsule to chew and honestly, what the fuck even is his life, that he has to check for that shit. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Not here," he says, and he doesn't tell Steve that there's a chair here. That there's a cryo tube. That the last base had medical records on the Winter Soldier. He didn't tell him about that fucking nightmare steel coffin room either. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He makes his reports, sends them directly to Natasha, and screams himself awake more nights than not--but he doesn't tell Steve. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve's got enough shit to deal with. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he thinks, if Steve ever knew--he'd never stop chasing Barnes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He thinks maybe there's a dignity in protecting Barnes from being known, that intimately, in that bloody painful detail. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'll keep looking," he says, and across the line, Steve sighs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There is this--after long fruitless chases that end in nightmares and blood, he goes home. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sometimes because there's nothing to chase, dead end leads drying up for a time, and Sam always wonders at that--if it's Barnes or Natasha's doing. Sometimes it's  because Rhodes says something to Stark who says something to Steve who shows up, all blonde and earnest and adorable and drags Sam home for a few weeks to rest. Sometimes, he goes home because he can’t stand the weight of the sky closing in on him, and Riley smiling at him in his dreaming, bloody and beautiful and broken.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He circles the globe and he always, always goes home. To the Tower, briefly, long enough for Steve to relax in the knowledge that he's safe, to his mother's apartment in Harlem for the same, and to his home, quiet and ill-fitting now, but still his, still the place that he and Riley chose together, and he settles there, and sleeps. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And like a homing pigeon coming to roost, like a needle pointing north--Barnes follows. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stumbles into the kitchen and Barnes is standing there, and it'd be more surprising if it weren't so damn familiar, these days, the sight of him in faded jeans and a tight henley and that black glove as much a part of returning home as the empty fridge and pile of laundry. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The blueberry muffins are new, and Sam blinks at them. Blinks at Bucky, who shifts, a pretty flush in his cheeks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Did you get juice?" Sam asks, because honestly, it's the only thing that he can think to say to the fucking Winter Solider standing in his kitchen, barefoot and unarmed and hovering over a bag of blueberry muffins. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Barnes smiles, soft and hesitant, and Sam thinks that maybe his life is even more fucked up than he thought. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There's a comfortable rhythm to it. To the missions that are long and bloody and strangely satisfying, to the bursts of companionship from Rhodes and Natasha and the other Avengers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There's a comfortable rhythm to the knowledge that when this part is done, no matter what he finds or doesn't, he'll go home and when he goes home, Barnes will come to him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That for a few days, they will occupy the same four walls, that Barnes will frown at his food and steal the remote when Sam tries to change the channel, and will sleep, soundless and terrifying and </span>
  <em>
    <span>comforting</span>
  </em>
  <span>, in his guest room, and that for a few days, no matter what horrors he's seen--Sam won't wake from nightmares drenched in blood and dead eyes, because he </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows</span>
  </em>
  <span> that Bucky is safe. He doesn't dream about Riley, when he's home, doesn't dream of falling endlessly and the people he can't catch. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He likes that when he returns, he can see that Bucky is getting better. The missions stretch on, and Hydra is decimated more and more, and Bucky looks less like a weapon and more like a </span>
  <em>
    <span>person</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You gonna ever tell Rogers where you're at?" Sam asks, one night, a year and some change after Insight crashed their lives. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He's engaged to Stark now," Barnes says, and Sam frowns, looking up from the pork chop he's stuffing. Bucky is perched on the counter, nibbling on a cucumber, looking softer than Sam's ever seen him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What's that got to do with anything?" he asks, a bite of anger in his voice. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bucky frowns, hooks his hair behind his ear, and looks at Sam like he doesn't understand why Sam is being difficult. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The feeling is mutual. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You read my file," Bucky says, and that's not where he was expecting this to go. At all. "You know what I did to Stark's parents." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh," Sam says, softly, gaze going back to the pork. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel</span>
  </em>
  <span> Bucky watching him, but refuses to look up. "I don't wanna ruin that for him, Sam. If I come in--Stark is gonna find out. And it'll be ruined. I've destroyed enough." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Tony wouldn't," Sam says, softly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You don't know that," Barnes says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He wouldn't have asked Steve to marry him, if it was a problem." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There's a beat of silence, loaded enough that Sam finally looks up. Bucky is watching him, his gaze soft and fond and it makes him smile, hesitant and small. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Steve will never deserve you, Sam Wilson," Bucky says, and then slides off the counter and pads out of the kitchen, leaving Sam to wonder what the hell had just happened. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next time he's on a mission, he gets a text from an unknown number. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>UNKOWN: you ok? That looked hairy today. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He stares at it for a long time. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Wilson: Why are you even in Sao Palo? </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>UNKOWN: you didn't honestly think I was lettin' you go on missions without backup, did you? </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Wilson: LET ME? like you let me have the last of the bacon, huh?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Wilson: Wait how long you been shadowin' me? </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>UNKOWN: You're going after the scientists and Handler, tomorrow? </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Wilson: i asked you a question, man. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>UNKOWN: Keep a taser on you for the Handler, alright? Be quick about it, he likes to play dead and then strike. Don't get hurt. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>UNKOWN: The scientist has a home lab, so keep him in the open  spaces of the house or you'll be sittin' on a bomb. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Wilson: thanks for the intel, you fucking creeper. we coulda talked about this over that nice pork loin i made, if you hadn't bolted. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Wilson: Don't think I don't see you avoidin' the questions, too. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Later, on the flight to Capetown--the scientist had been very helpful once Sam cut off access to his lab--he looks at his phone and finds another text.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>UNKNOWN: I never let you go out alone. Not once. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We got a lead on the scepter," Steve tells him, and Sam pauses. He's in Bangkok, for another few hours before his flight home, and he's tired and aching. He caught a knife with his arm the other day, and he's heard nothing from Bucky since, and he's dreading going home and dealing with his fury and fear. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But this--this is good news. The Avengers have been chasing the scepter for almost as long as Sam's been chasing the Winter Soldier. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah. We're--we're all gonna go. Do you think you could take an assemble, if--" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah, man. I'll be stateside in about twelve hours," he says, cutting Steve off before he can get started. "I'll stay with my mama." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The tower--" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'll stay with Mama, man," he says, gentle, letting laughter fill his voice. It's easier to let Captain America down than it is Steve. Strange, how that works. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Ok," Steve sighs, "Call when you get stateside." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Sure thing, Cap," he says and pockets his phone. He finishes buying the brightly wrapped candy and shoves it in his bag, and refuses to think about how disappointed he is, that he isn't going to DC, that he won't be able to share it with Bucky. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shoves his loneliness down with the feelings he's refusing to acknowledge, and get a cab to the airport. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There's a text waiting on his phone, when he lands. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He glances at it, and then texts Steve to let him know he's stateside, and climbs into the back of a cab that--he prays--won't be anything like the suicidal run his Bangkok cabbie had. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Brooklyn," he murmurs, and closes his eyes, too tired to bother with anything else. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The car deposits him, sleep muddled and grumpy, in front of a tall, pre-war brick building, and he smiles, a small fond thing. There's no elevator, but it's only three stories, and he's come this far. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Barnes is waiting, when he knocks. He opens the door and smiles at Sam, and all of the tension just unspools, vanishes. A million miles, he's travelled and it feels like whenever he comes home--this man is waiting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even when he can't go </span>
  <em>
    <span>home</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I brought you candy," Sam says, inanely, and Bucky laughs, this soft, soundless huff of noise that makes something warm and sweet curl in his belly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He falls asleep before he can give Bucky the candy, before their Chinese arrives, before he can even shower. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He falls asleep, and he can feel this--Bucky's fingers, soothing over his hair. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He falls asleep, and he can hear this--Bucky's voice, murmuring, "Shh. You're safe, now, sweetheart." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He falls asleep, and he believes him. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He wakes up and the room is unfamiliar, bland walls and Ikea furniture that he doesn't recognize, and a couch uncomfortable under him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And a warm body cushioning him, one hand splayed over his chest. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It should disturb him more, he thinks, to wake up cuddled up to the Winter Soldier. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Bucky is comfortable and warm, and he wants to press closer, wants to drag his hand up and cuddle it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He likes coming back from the ugly realities of the world, like coming back from facing Hydra's shitty remnants to find Bucky, alive and whole and healthy. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You hungry?" Bucky rumbles above him and Sam nods, silent, playing with the fingers on his chest. There's dirt under his nails, and a bit of grease caught in the crease of his thumb, and it makes a frown twist at his mouth. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Got a job," Bucky says. "Nothing wrong, I promise." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"How do you know that's what I was thinking?" Sam asks, sharply and tilts his head up to look at Bucky, upside down and off center.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His hair is messy and soft around his face, and his eyes are bright and fond as he stares down at Sam. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You think real loud, sweetheart," he murmurs and Sam--Sam's heart does this sweet little tumble, pleased and terrified and the fingers on his chest squeeze tight before they release him, pat at his chest. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Get a shower, and I'll feed you." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He thinks he should probably pause and chase down what the hell that endearment means, what that soft sweet look in his eyes means--but he doesn't. He rolls to his feet and slips into the shower. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he emerges, Bucky is waiting for him, and stands. Sam follows him silently from the apartment, down the street to a small deli where he orders them breakfast bagel sandwiches and strong coffee with too much cream and sugar, so sweet it makes his teeth ache, but warms him too. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They eat quietly, Bucky pressed against him shoulder to shoulder, the city moving past in the way that it does sometimes, all sweet and sluggish and sleepy still. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's strange, and sweet, and perfect. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You gonna be here for a while?" Sam asks and Bucky shrugs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"As long as work holds," he allows. "As long as no one bothers me," he adds, side-eyeing Sam. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Steve is gonna figure this out eventually," Sam says simply and Bucky huffs. "But not from me." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It makes Bucky smile at him, small and sweet and Sam ignores the voice demanding to know what the hell they're doing--and focuses on the heat in his belly that he hasn't felt since before Riley died. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The quiet domesticity lasts for two days, until he wakes--curled against Bucky's chest for the third time--to his phone ringing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He's called twice," Bucky murmurs, and Sam groans. He wants to ignore it, wants to ignore the summons back to his real world. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wants to stay here, in this soft, peaceful interlude, forever. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What are we doin'?" he asks, instead of reaching for his phone. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bucky goes still under him, and he tips his head up, searches storm sky eyes. "What is this?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Whatever you want it to be," Bucky murmurs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You gotta decide," Sam says. "You've had too many other people decidin'. You gotta decide, man." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bucky stares back at him, for a long time, but Sam waits, patient, familiar with the way he needs to sort through his own thoughts, sometimes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hesitantly, he brushes his lips against Sam's, the barest, sweetest kiss, and Sam smiles. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Is this ok?" Bucky breathes against his mouth and Sam hums. Leans up and kisses him again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah. It's ok." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He curls against Bucky's chest, and he can taste him still, when he picks up his phone. "I have to tell him, soon," Sam says, the same thing he always reminds Bucky of, and Bucky blinks back at him, same as he always does. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hey, man," Sam says, when Steve answers. "How'd it go?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Great," Steve says, and he's uninhibitedly happy, the kind of happy that goes with a well executed mission, and Tony. "We found the scepter." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hey, man, that's fantastic!" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Tony is throwing a party--you gotta come." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He blinks at Bucky and smiles. "Yeah, man, that sounds good." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bucky watches, quiet and peaceful, and Sam wonders what the hell he's even doing anymore. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't know exactly what to expect from a party hosted by Tony Stark, but when the elevator doors slide open and let him out a sleek glass floor with high ceilings, open balconies and a floating staircase--he thinks this isn't it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There's a small cluster of World War II vets talking to Steve. Natasha smirks at him from behind the bar, as flawlessly beautiful as ever. Tony Stark walks by and nods at him, eyes bright and fixed on Thor as they argue. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This world isn't his. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows that. But--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Sam!" Steve calls and he fixes a smile on his face and crosses the room to his friend. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This isn't his world. He doesn't even know that he wants it to be--he </span>
  <em>
    <span>likes</span>
  </em>
  <span> his quiet house and Bucky slipping in through the cracks, likes his endless pointless chase through Europe with his wings and the heavy weight of the open sky and the knowledge that when he goes home, he'll find someone waiting, and rest. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He likes that when he’s alone out there, no one looks too close at the cracks in the facade, and likes that Bucky is patching up those cracks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Still. Steve is part of his world, a part he wouldn't change or walk away from for all the freedom in the world. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he smiles and he steps into this otherworldly thing that is his life, and forgets for a few hours, that it isn't his. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"There's a base in California," Natasha says as he's getting ready to leave. "If you go now, you can hit it before they clear the base. It came up in Strucker's files."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Cold case?" he asks. She does something on her phone and there's an answering ping on his own.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"They have a Chair," she says simply. "It's doubtful the Asset is there, but checking it and cleaning house isn't a bad idea." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Barnes," he says, absently, flicking through the file. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Natasha makes a noise in her throat, low and surprised and it drags Sam's gaze up, to where she's watching him with narrow, appraising eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You aren't getting too close, are you, Wilson?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He thinks of how he woke up, with a metal hand splayed over his chest. He thinks of the bag of candy in Thailand and the texts and the knowledge, wherever he is in the world, that he'd see Bucky when he returned home. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Nope," he pops back and she smirks. "But using HYDRA's name for him just seems cruel." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Mmm. Stark's letting you take the jet. Wheels up in thirty," she says, and he nods. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He gets the message from Bucky when he's knee deep in HYDRA blood. He sees it flash in the corner of his visual display--a nice upgrade from Stark--but he flicks away from it without digging too deep. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The base is almost empty, and there's rumbling through the few guards and scientists that there's someone new at play--someone who can reach into what remains of SHIELD and wipe Strucker off the board. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They sound scared. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't know why that isn't as reassuring as it should be. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Get home," Bucky says as soon as he answers. "DC, not New York. I got your mom out of the city." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What happened?" he asks, not bothering to dwell on the blind panic that comes from knowing the Winter Soldier was near his mother. "How the hell'd you get her to listen?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Told her I was your boyfriend. She's pissed you didn't tell her sooner. Don't worry about her--she's safe." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Bucky, what happened?" he demands again, his voice sharp and furious and Bucky goes quiet. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Turn on the news." </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's everywhere. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Hulk going on a rampage through Johannesburg. He watches, thinks about the man he met just a few nights ago, quiet and shy, the way that Nat had watched him, a curiously </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanting</span>
  </em>
  <span> gleam in her gaze. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The way that he fit so neat and perfect with Steve and Tony, his small presence almost overwhelmed by theirs, but balancing it too. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It doesn't fit the furious beast tearing through a city, fighting with Iron Man in a suit that is terrifying. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watches and when they drag down a building, in a wash of smoke and splintering metal that reminds him, viscerally, of a blue September morning a lifetime ago, he throws up, messy and painful, and cries, for the people in a city he's never been to, for the shy quiet man he met, for all of them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because he has no idea how the hell the Avengers will come back from a disaster this public. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He calls Steve. He calls and he calls and he calls, and eventually the calls quit going through, sent straight to voicemail and he bites down on a curse, a helpless rage swimming through him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He glares at the deepening night sky as the jet flies silently on, and waits. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bucky is waiting when he slips into his house. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He's kitted out in black tac pants and the armored gear he wore when he was the Asset, when he almost killed them on the helicarriers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam doesn't know what it says about his life, about where the hell they are in the current shitshow, that it's comforting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There's relief in grey eyes, when Sam steps inside, and Sam doesn't really think about it, just keeps moving until he's crashing into Bucky and strong arms, metal and flesh, wrap around him and hold him together as the world keeps splintering apart. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"You can't come. If they call me in--you know you can't come." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I know," Bucky says, and for the first time, there's guilt and grief and longing in his voice. Sam squeezes his hand, and steps away. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"C'mon, man. Feed me." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah. Yeah, ok. Then you gotta sleep. They'll call you soon." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam knows he's right. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But for a few hours, he wants to be here--where the world is small and safe, and Bucky watches him with a hopeless sort of devotion. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They order BBQ. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bucky is kitted out for a fight he </span>
  <em>
    <span>can't</span>
  </em>
  <span> fight, skating close enough to the edge of the Soldier that Sam is reminded of that first night, and there's no way he's comfortable taking the man out into public. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he doesn't want to. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wants to hide away, in this moment, for as long as it can last. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Why do you come here?" he asks, as they're unpacking ribs and chopped pork, as Barnes pops the top of brunswick stew and gives it a sniff. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Barnes looks at him, curious. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's not because of Steve, not anymore. Hell, half the time you show up, you don't even mention Steve. You keep close enough tabs on him you knew shit was hitting the fan before I did. You're safe enough to be around him--but you keep coming here. Why?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Do you want me to stop?" he asks, instead of answering and Sam scowls. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I didn't say that," he snaps and snatches the stew out of Bucky's hands. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They eat in silence for a long time, the low sound of Planet Earth--Barnes </span>
  <em>
    <span>likes</span>
  </em>
  <span> documentaries, and it's soothing, the old dude who narrates, and the ones in the Arctic are pretty--before Bucky says, "When I was the Asset--I was conditioned. After a mission, return for debrief and maintenance. That usually meant cryo, but I knew what it was. There was something reassuring in that, in knowing that even if it was horrible, I knew what the horrible was." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam pauses, the BBQ in his belly turning unpleasantly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The first time I came here, I think it was like that. Debrief. I knew you knew Rogers, knew you were safe. I wasn't trying to kill you, during Insight, just keep you out of the way so I could kill him. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You</span>
  </em>
  <span> weren't my mission. So I came here, because I could debrief and get maintenance." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Man, food is not maintenance," he says, weakly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No, it's not. You aren't--it's not like Hydra. You're safe," Barnes says, and there's something helpless about the way he says it, a desperation to explain something that he can't quite put into words. "You're </span>
  <em>
    <span>safe</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Sam. I don't know many places in the world that are safe--but </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, are." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam stares at him for a long time and then, softly, "Eat your ribs, man. "</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He wakes up because his phone is buzzing angrily, and he sees Bucky watching him, eyes brilliant in the near dark, and his mouth is dry and his heart is beating too hard. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hello?" he says and Nick fucking Fury says, "Wilson. Time to come out of retirement." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yes, sir," he says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He listens, and makes all the right noises and promises to be ready when his ride arrives in ten minutes, and never looks away from Bucky. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The silence, when he hangs up, is a ringing, profound thing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You'll be careful, right?" Bucky asks, and his voice is trying to be cutting, to mock--but it's not coming out quite right, too heavy with worry. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'll be careful," he says, instead of pointing it out. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stands, and Bucky nods at the go bag waiting on the table. The BBQ's been packed up too, tucked away in the fridge. "Your gear is ready." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They don't do this--Bucky just melts away in the night. They never do the morning after, middle of the night goodbye. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Bucky </span>
  <em>
    <span>stayed</span>
  </em>
  <span>, even knowing it was coming, even knowing this would play out, and he can't quite make his breath go steady and even, not when Bucky is staring at him like that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bucky smiles, and slips across the room, silent in his big boots and beautiful and predatory. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Riley would laugh his ass off, falling for another dangerous white boy, Sam thinks, absurdly, because he did. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Somewhere between getting kicked off a helicarrier and his house broken into and now, standing in the dark with Bucky close enough to touch--he fell, hard, for him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Be careful, sweetheart," Bucky murmurs, and kisses him, this sweet fleeting thing that has a touch of teeth, a hint of </span>
  <em>
    <span>more</span>
  </em>
  <span>, before he pulls away and there's an impatient honk from outside. "Go save the world." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam takes a breath, and grabs his bag, and wants so bad for another kiss, that he almost goes back for it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But when he looks--there's only empty shadows and silence. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He takes his gear, and goes. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When he goes back to his house in DC, it’s empty. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It takes him almost twenty four hours to realize--to acknowledge--that this emptiness is different from the past. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There's no fresh food in the fridge, no recently used dishes in the sink. The couch is neat and tidy, the knit blanket that Bucky likes to curl up under folded, hanging neatly over the back. The throw pillows his sister bought are carefully placed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His plant's are dry and listless. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The empty house is the kind of empty that it should be, but never is--the kind of empty that speaks of a long absence, the quiet untouched waiting that he always expects when he comes back from a mission but never quite finds. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There's a small stack of books on the bedside table in the guest bedroom, and his knife--the one that Bucky likes to abscond with--is sharp and polished and sitting on top of them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He waits, though. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because this is his constant, now: Bucky will come home. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bucky always come back to him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He waits, and he hopes and even as he does--he knows that this time, something is different. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That this time--Bucky isn't coming home. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He turns off his phone and slips into the city without telling Nat or Steve. He has to report in soon--he's an Avenger now, doing missions with them and everything, and he can't just wander the damn globe looking for Bucky fucking Barnes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he can spend forty eight hours looking. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He slips into the city and makes his way to the Brooklyn apartment that Bucky took him to. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a key on his keyring, one he doesn't recognize, and it fits the lock, slides back the deadbolt easily. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The apartment is still, and quiet and dusty, and without looking, Sam knows that he won't find Bucky here either. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And the thing is--he knows Bucky. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He's spent the better part of two years chasing him for Steve, and he's never once felt like the leads he was following were anywhere close to the Winter Soldier. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He's always known where Bucky is because Bucky </span>
  <em>
    <span>wants</span>
  </em>
  <span> him to know. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This--this is different. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This is the place where Bucky brought him, the safe house that felt like home, a place where they were happy. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And it's empty, a quiet kind of desertion that makes him ache. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wanders through the apartment and curls up on the bed where they never once slept, and blinks back his tears. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He finds the letter when he's packing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He left the apartment in Brooklyn untouched, locked the door behind him and pocketed the key and went home because Bucky being in the wind doesn't change the realities of his life and the commitments he's made. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He leaves the furniture except his couch, packs his books and his clothes, the gear he keeps in the spare room closet, tugs the three boxes of memories he keeps in the attic down and blows the dust away. It's depressingly easy to pack up his whole life. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He finds the letter when he's knee deep in the kitchen, when he's pulling mugs down and wrapping them in paper. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stares at it, sitting neat and unobtrusive, in his favorite mug and breathes through the panic and pain in his gut. He finishes packing the mugs and then takes the letter and a bottle of whiskey to the living room. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Sam, </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I gotta go. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I know that you'll want to keep me close. I know why. And there's a part of me that wants to stay. But I'm as safe from HYDRA as I can be--you made sure I was--and now I gotta figure out who I am without their collar. I can't do that in your guest room. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I'm gonna come home, sweetheart. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I'm sorry. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>BB- </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He reads the letter twice, and then he opens the whiskey and he starts drinking. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Moving into the Compound is anti-climatic, and after two years of putting Steve off every time he asked Sam to move into the tower--it's surprisingly painless. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The letter he burned in his sink probably makes it easier. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not hard to leave a place when you know  no one's there waiting for you. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve helps him move which turns into Sam and Nat sitting on the kitchen counter drinking beer while Steve happily moves boxes and carries his couch in. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The apartment comes with a couch," Steve says, putting it down with a muffled thud. The bastard isn't even sweating. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I like mine," Sam says, simply. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve nods, happily, because at this point there's nothing that could make him unhappy, and trots out to gather more boxes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He and Stark made up, after the Ultron business?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He should already know this. He's been a shitty friend, and he feels, just a little bit, guilty. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Mmmm. I think they fight just to get to the makeup sex," Natasha says, finishing her beer. She smirks when Sam makes a face. "Tony is still saying he's done though." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Do you think it'll last?" He can't imagine Tony Stark </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> being Iron Man, anymore than he can imagine Steve setting aside the shield. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think he'll be there, when we need him," Natasha says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He snorts, and there's no disguising the anger, the bitterness, when he does. Natasha pauses, and her eyes narrow at him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That's what people say, isn't it?" he says, angry, suddenly. Furious.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I'm sorry.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That </span>
  <em>
    <span>when you need them</span>
  </em>
  <span> they'll be there. Like that makes vanishing ok. What if what he needs isn't just the hard times, or when the world is ending. What if Steve needs him </span>
  <em>
    <span>now</span>
  </em>
  <span>, here, for the little shit. For </span>
  <em>
    <span>living</span>
  </em>
  <span>." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Tony--Tony didn't break up with Steve," Natasha says carefully. "They're still dating, Sam. He just isn't a doing the Avengers thing." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam bites back a response. Blinks back tears. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because yeah--that's about right. Sam is the one people leave. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Riley. Bucky. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He's still standing here, where they left him, and wondering why the hell people keep vanishing from his life. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He finishes his beer and slides off the counter before Natasha can ask, "I'm gonna help Steve," he says.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe if he helps, he'll stop fucking thinking. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He likes Avenging. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He likes that it's constant adrenaline, likes Nat and Wanda and Rhodey. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He likes that when he's chasing Steve around the compound or going over the specs for his wings with Tony, or sparring with Vision, he can't think. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He likes that sometimes, when nothing is going on, they raid HYDRA bases that Natasha seems to have an unending supply of. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He likes that he's got a place, and people who care about him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sometimes he thinks about Riley--more often than he has in years, he thinks about Riley. He thinks about what his crazy, sweet, smiling, white boy would think about him now. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>You're a real life superhero, baby. Always knew you would be.</span>
  </em>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>He'd been so pleased when Sam strapped on his wings, even happier about that then when he'd gotten his own. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It never occured to Riley that they couldn't just fly--that they could fall. He wonders sometimes if it even occurred to him </span>
  <em>
    <span>when</span>
  </em>
  <span> he fell.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He flies into fight after fight after fight, aerial support, guns down terrorists and neo-Nazis and gunrunners, and they chase ghosts across the planet, and he thinks that Riley would love this, him, like this. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wonders what Riley would think. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wonders, a lot, if he would have run away, like Bucky did. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The knock on his door makes his heart trip over itself. It's been almost six months since he moved into the Compound, six months since Bucky vanished into the night. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he still hopes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hates himself for that, a little bit. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve is waiting, hair wet and hanging around his ears--he needs a cut--and a six pack in his hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam arches an eyebrow. "That kinda talk, huh?" he asks, dryly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve shrugs, and follows him into the apartment, not bothering to deny that this is a checkup. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You wanna tell me about it?" he asks, extending one of the beers to Sam after twisting off the top. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You gonna drink with me?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"If that'll make it easier," Steve says, agreeable. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam snorts, and shoves the beers in the fridge and grabs a bag of white cheddar popcorn from the pantry, padding to his couch with Steve trailing him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Would you believe me if I said I got dumped?" he asks, and Steve's eyes widen. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I didn't know you were seeing anyone," he says, slowly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam laughs, and he knows it sounds bitter. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The thing is--he is. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He's angry and he's bitter and he's so damn lonely it eats at him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's been six months since Bucky vanished, and it shouldn't hurt this much, still. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Especially since he knows--</span>
  <em>
    <span>he knows</span>
  </em>
  <span>--that it's for the best. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That Bucky needs space and time, to figure himself out. What they were doin'--that dance around each other and circling back, it wasn't any kind of healthy. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But it was real and it was dependable, and he knew that Bucky would be there, waiting, when he came home, and it was more than he'd had since before Riley fell, and maybe--maybe for a little while, it had let him forget. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It wasn't real healthy," he admits, out loud, for the first time. "I think we were both runnin' and just happened to crash into each other, and maybe it was just--easier to be stuck together than to be alone." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Did you love them?" Steve asks, and Sam flicks a look at him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah," he says, hoarsely. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That's a first too, he thinks, and swallows half the beer. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Tell me about them?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He's an asshole," Sam says, laughing, and bitter, and there are tears in his eyes, and he hates Bucky, hates Riley, hates </span>
  <em>
    <span>himself</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah," Steve says, softly. "The best ones are." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He always took care of me, though--when I'd get home from a mission? He'd always make me take care of myself, make me eat, before he put me to bed. He was real good like that," Sam says. "I miss him takin' care of me, Cap." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve's hand on his shoulder is gentle and it's what makes him break. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He cries, messy and ugly and silent, and Steve's hand on his shoulder never quite falters. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Sometimes he dreams. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of storm grey eyes and a metal arm holding him close, a sleep rough voice rumbling against his back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of bloody halls and a metal chair and screams echoing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of chasing through empty buildings, empty streets, empty houses, and always, </span>
  <em>
    <span>always</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he is three steps out of reach, vanishing into fog around the corner into a dark room. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sometimes he dreams. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of silky lips and soft laughter and a warm voice saying </span>
  <em>
    <span>sweetheart</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of a big body moving over him, eyes bright with sunshine and cold with ice. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of an endless sky and Riley soaring above him and Bucky waiting below. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sometimes he dreams. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He thinks those nights are the worst nights of all. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He goes to Harlem, to his Mama's house, and she sits next to him, a plate of cookies on the table in front of them and says, "I expected you to come visit me a while ago, sweetheart." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He laughs, a wet noise that gets caught in his throat, and it </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurts</span>
  </em>
  <span>, how much he misses Bucky. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It hurts how fucking lonely he is. Even surrounded by people, he's lonely. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Do you wanna tell me about him?" she asks, gently. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He's not my boyfriend," Sam says. That seems very important. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mama huffs, and pushes a cookie into his hand. "I know that, silly boy. You've never once kept a boy you like a secret, Sam Wilson. Don't expect you'd start with a new crazy white boy." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Then why'd you go with him?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Because he cares about you enough to come for me, when he thought I was in danger. And that means he's important." She pauses, studying him. "Am I wrong?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shakes his head, and she softens. Tugs him lightly until he rests against her shoulder and pats his hair, not even commenting on how long he's let it get. He closes his eyes and inhales the scent of home, and safety. "Tell me about him," she instructs and Sam does. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He spends a weekend in his childhood bedroom, letting Mama feed him up and telling her about Bucky and it feels a little bit like lancing a wound. Like talking about him is letting out some of the grief and guilt. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You know you can't keep it bottled up, baby. You do this for a living, you know it's bad for you." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He nods. "He's special, though, Mama. I can't tell Steve--or any of them." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No, I don't suppose you can. So you come and you tell me, when carrying it gets too much." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wakes early on Sunday, while she's fussing with pancakes and muffins and arguing with her sister on the phone and he slips out for a run. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He ends up in front of the walkup in Brooklyn. He stands on the sidewalk for a long time, staring at it, and he knows he could go up the stairs and inside and it would be there, waiting for him, an untouched sanctuary. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows that it's going to keep waiting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stares at it and wonders if being pulled back here is like Bucky returning to his house in D.C., if it's instinct or choice, or just a need, burning under his skin. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he finally turns away, he goes without any answers, but his heart doesn't ache quite as much. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He still gets texts. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's been almost a year since Bucky slipped into the night, and he's put it away mostly--it aches in his gut and there are days when he can't quite meet Steve's eye, but he doesn't dream about him much anymore, and he isn't eaten up with guilt and longing and anger. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he still gets texts. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sometimes they're wordless. Just a foreign city, a messy apartment, a bag of fruit, a shitty selfie, out of focus and blurry. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sometimes they're short and pointless. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>UNKNOWN: </span>
  <em>
    <span>I miss you </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>UNKNOWN: </span>
  <em>
    <span>I saw a cat today </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>UNKNOWN: </span>
  <em>
    <span>You'd like the book I'm reading. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>UNKNOWN: </span>
  <em>
    <span>The sunset was pretty tonight. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sometimes they're short and brutal. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>UNKNOWN: </span>
  <em>
    <span>The HYDRA base in Laos is doing human experiments. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>UNKNOWN: </span>
  <em>
    <span>There's a mutant kid in Queens but he's not HYDRA's. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>UNKNOWN: </span>
  <em>
    <span>got shot clearing that base in Bhutan you never got around to. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>UNKNOWN: </span>
  <em>
    <span>I had a nightmare about the Chair. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They're never long, and they never say anything he can hold on to and they always say too much. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He loves them and he hates them, and he thinks that about sums up the weird thing he has with James Buchanan Barnes. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They do good work, the Avengers, and he likes his team--but he knows that they're living on borrowed time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It goes to hell faster than he expects, if he's honest. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It goes to hell in Lagos, a mission that's messy with shitty intel and Rumlow throwing Bucky in Steve's face in a way that makes Sam falter as he's doing clean up with Nat, desperate to go over and shake some kind of truth outta the asshole. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can hear the panic and fury in Steve's voice, and it steadies him a little, enough to keep himself on mission, as they chase down the payload through a chaotic city. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It goes to hell when they should be ok, when the payload is secure and Rumlow is taunting--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It goes to hell. It shouldn't, but it does, and Wanda is panting and guilt-stricken next to him, and there's a defeated shock to Steve's voice that terrifies him, and Sam--Sam flies into a still burning building looking for anyone who might have survived that bomb blast, and he knows damn well that no one has, but he flies and he flies, and he chokes on smoke and the heat eats at him, until Steve drags him out and he can't </span>
  <em>
    <span>see</span>
  </em>
  <span> anything but the dead bodies on the ground. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Tony is quiet while Ross talks. It's the first clue that this isn't going to go the way Steve wants. Sam watches him--the billionaire sits apart, like he's not part of them, and he isn't, he knows that he isn't--he knows that Stark left the team after Ultron, that he won't put the suit back on, not even for Steve and the ring gleaming on his left hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But this isn't the field, and Tony isn't separate on something like this. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ross goes, and the arguing starts, and Tony is quiet, until he isn't, letting them all voice the reasons the Accords are awful and why they aren't, and when he talks--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He says exactly what Sam expects. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We need to be put in check." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We're no better than the bad guys." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam watches the guilt and grief filling up Steve's eyes, the same guilt and grief that he's seen in Tony's eyes for months, and he wonders if they can come back from this--the team and </span>
  <em>
    <span>them</span>
  </em>
  <span>, if there's anyway to fix the things that are broken in this team. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve's phone rings, and Sam watches, eyes narrow, and Tony's shoulders slump as he leaves. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The funeral is beautiful, as funerals go. Sam thinks he'd have liked Peggy Carter--he sits at her funeral and it's strange because he didn't know her, had never met her, but after three years of friendship with Steve, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>feels</span>
  </em>
  <span> like he knows her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sits next to him, and nudges Steve when Sharon steps up to the podium, and the truth spins out, and he can see that guilt, that grief and guilt filling his eyes again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wants to say--I know where Bucky is. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wants to say--I've known for years. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wants to say--I think I love him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He bites his lip and doesn't say a damn thing. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The UN building explodes in Berlin, and all his choices get ripped away in the shock of it, in Sharon's quiet intel, in the picture of Bucky, grainy and indistinct, and Sam wants to shout, wants to scream that it isn't him that it can't be him--but he doesn't. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He reaches for his phone and for the first time in a year, he texts Bucky. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>WILSON: Are you safe? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>UNKNOWN: Yeah. i saw the news--you?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>WILSON: We're in London for Carter's funeral. Nat is there. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>UNKNOWN: keep outta it, sweetheart. Gotta  feeling this is gonna get messy. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He almost tells Bucky to go to ground. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looks at Steve, sitting next to him in a bar, looking ridiculous and fierce in his ballcap and sunglasses. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He says, "I gotta tell you something." </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It feels </span>
  <em>
    <span>good</span>
  </em>
  <span>, telling Steve. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He spills it out, all of it, that first night in DC. The texts and Bucky's fears and the way he'd always been careful with Sam. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't tell Steve about the Brooklyn apartment. He doesn't tell Steve that he's in love with him. He doesn't tell Steve that it happened over and over and over. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He keeps that for himself, and stares at Steve. "I know you're pissed. But I didn't tell you because he didn't want you to know." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You lied to me for </span>
  <em>
    <span>years</span>
  </em>
  <span>," Steve says, disbelieving. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He nods, because there's nothing else to do. He did. He didn't want to, fought with Bucky about it--but he still did it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He needed to find himself, before he could come home, Steve." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Did he?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He bites back,</span>
  <em>
    <span> I hope so.</span>
  </em>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I know where he is. And I know he didn't do this," he says instead and he </span>
  <em>
    <span>watches</span>
  </em>
  <span> Steve pack it away, his fury and grief, and focus on the job at hand. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It's a mess. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>From the rooftop and listening to Steve completely bungle reaching out to Bucky, to the mad dash through the city, and Bucky's furious looks shot at him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's a chaotic mess until Rhodey slams down, a tooth-rattling force and stills them all, and then it's just a </span>
  <em>
    <span>mess</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tony is sassy and snarky and they argue, him and Steve, while Natasha takes his wings and vanishes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watches the monitor, where Bucky is strapped into a chair that makes his blood boil. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looks--good. He's put on weight, his shoulders broad and his hair clean, and he's still impossibly pretty, and there's a healthy color to his skin, everything about him says healthy and whole and Sam stands there, eyes avid on the screen, drinking it in, and he hates the way Bucky looks so damn defeated, so fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>tired</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watches, and then it all goes to hell, and it makes everything that came before look like a walk in the park. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bucky gets his hand around Sam's throat, at one point in the fighting, and Sam wants to press into that touch and rip him away, and he slams into the wall that Bucky just threw him into, and he blacks out and doesn't know, exactly, what he wants. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"How do we know it's him?" he asks, and Steve gives him this </span>
  <em>
    <span>look</span>
  </em>
  <span>, all carefully leashed fury. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Didn't you tell me that he's safe?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That was before he tried to throw me through a wall," Sam says, dryly. "And I didn't say safe. He's the Winter Soldier. He's never gonna be 'safe'." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He knows me," Steve says, insistent, and Sam opens his mouth to argue, but Steve hears Bucky moving behind them, waking up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Which Bucky am I dealing with?" he asks, which, points for not rushing in like an idiot. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Your mom's name was Sarah," Bucky says, rusty. "You used to put newspapers in your shoes." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He's laughing, and it's so damn pretty Sam loses track of the conversation, just knows that Steve is moving forward. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Just like that, huh?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bucky's gaze flicks to him, and there's an apology in storm grey that Sam isn't ready for. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You eat homemade pho when you're sad," he says, softly. "And pizza when you're tired, and when you're very happy, you make your mama's blackberry cobbler." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve goes still, gaze darting to Sam, confusion bright in his blue eyes, and Sam shakes it off, struggling to steady his breathing as they talk. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hears this, though. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm not the only Winter Solider." </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Steve gets a tiny clown car because Steve is an asshole, and Bucky crawls into the back, and there's a part of Sam that wants to follow him, wants to crawl into his arms and inhale the scent of river and </span>
  <em>
    <span>Bucky</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He doesn't. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sits in the front seat and they drive, and Bucky says, "Will you move your seat up?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Sam says, "No." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It feels petty and small and mean and good, too, and he can feel Bucky watching him, while Steve gets kissed by Sharon Carter, and the world falls apart, and Steve is blushing and pushing her away gently, explaining, when he feels metal fingers on his hand. "I'm sorry, sweetheart," Bucky says, softly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Why'd you do it then?" he asks. He's too tired to make it an accusation. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Because I can't--I can't be a person, until I </span>
  <em>
    <span>am</span>
  </em>
  <span>. I had to figure myself out." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He doesn't care." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bucky is quiet, and Steve is looking at them, so Sam forces a smile. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You do," Bucky whispers, behind him. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He knows it's gonna be bad. They're going up against Tony Stark in the suit, against Rhodey and Nat--against </span>
  <em>
    <span>friends</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We could stand down," Sam says again, and Bucky is quiet, watching. "Talk to Tony." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Tony is committed to the Accords." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There's a part of him that wants to </span>
  <em>
    <span>scream</span>
  </em>
  <span>, because Steve is a stubborn bastard--because </span>
  <em>
    <span>talking</span>
  </em>
  <span> to his fucking fiance might end all of this, and he's gonna keep on pulling this moral high ground bullshit. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Peggy Carter was a nice lady and all, but her niece picked the shittiest possible thing to eulogize her with at the worst possible time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows it's gonna be bad, but it's not. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's fucking awful. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They're evenly matched is the thing, know each other too damn well for either side to get the upper hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lang is their ace in the hole, someone whose tactics and abilities the others don't know about. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stark's got some dude in a suit that stops Bucky's arm cold, voice high and excited, and he thinks laying against the ground of the airport, his wings and arms webbed up and Bucky still near him, that the dude was a fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>kid</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You couldn't have done that earlier?" Bucky asks, dry, while Redwing carries a shrieking spider away. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I hate you," he says, and his voice is flat and angry and Bucky is quiet as he cuts himself free. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He rolls over and does the same for Sam, and lingers there, for just a moment. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You don't," he says and Sam glares. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The thing is--he doesn't mind taking the fall with the team. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't mind because he </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows</span>
  </em>
  <span> his team, knows Steve won't leave him wherever the hell Tony sticks them for time out, and it's ok, because the goal is those fucking Soliders in Siberia, and Steve and Bucky--they can handle that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bucky  never led him to Siberia, not in all the time Sam chased him around the world, and he doesn't want to think about what's waiting there. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He's chasing Rhodey, clearing the skies while Steve flies the jet away, and he dives a second before Vision fires, and he can hear Rhodey's panicked voice over the comms. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Can hear the naked fear in Tony's voice as he shouts Rhodey's name and he dives after him, chasing him down, fighting gravity that rips Rhodey away faster than he can fall. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It starts out noisy, but by the time Rhodey hits the ground, there's no sound. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nothing but silence, and the rising horror, because Riley fell, Riley fell just like that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He lands a heartbeat after Stark and chokes out half a question before Stark hits him with a repulsor that knocks him ass over elbows, and as he goes down, he thinks--</span>
  <em>
    <span>I deserve this</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Tony doesn't put them in time out. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The German police put them in shackles and hand them over to a Strikeforce team that shuffles them into unmarked black choppers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sits with Lang and Wanda and Clint for the flight, and stares down at the prison rising from the water. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can still see Rhodey falling, and the sound of his body hitting the ground breaking the silence. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No one will tell him shit. It eats at him, the not knowing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He'd get it, if it was Steve he was asking about--but Sam's asking about Rhodey. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Why do you care?" Wanda asks, listless. She's in a straightjacket to pin her hands, a powers-dampening collar around her neck and he's never seen her look quite so broken. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Because we're gonna come back from this, one day. We're gonna figure this Accords shit out and we're gonna go home, and I want my whole team, when we do." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The other stare at him, and the pity in their eyes is so thick and choking, he ends up sitting in a corner of his cell and closing his eyes against them and the bright lights and the nightmare that his life has become. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Tony comes and brings reluctant word of Rhodey and a plea for help that Sam wants to shove down his fucking throat, but then, Tony isn't the only one being a goddamn </span>
  <em>
    <span>idiot</span>
  </em>
  <span>, so maybe he and Steve really do deserve each other. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You go as a friend," he demands, and the thing is--he believes Tony when he nods and swears it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He believes it and he believes it and he believes it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Until days later, when he hears about Siberia from some guards who don't give a shit what the prisoners hear, and he hears about Bucky's arm being blown off, about the fight that almost killed Tony, the shield-shaped dent in the armor. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He curls in the corner of his cell and waits, and he doesn't even know anymore, what the fuck he's waiting for. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It turns out, he's waiting for Steve. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They don't really talk until they've been in Wakanda for a few days. Sam spends most of his time trying to breath through the raw panic that the open sky causes, trying to work Wanda through her uncontrolled rage, tries to </span>
  <em>
    <span>sleep</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't do a good job at any of it, but he figures he gets points for trying. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve finds him on the fifth day, sits next to Sam on a couch that looks uncomfortable but feels like a dream. Wanda is walking in the grass with Clint, and she doesn't look ready to rip apart the world, so he figures this conversation is overdue. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm not gonna apologize for not telling you he contacted me," Sam says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He said you wouldn't," Steve murmurs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They sit in quiet for a little longer. "I was wrong," Sam says eventually. "When I said he wasn't the kind you save. I was wrong." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You were wrong to keep it from me," Steve says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Man--" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I didn't tell Tony, about Bucky and his parents," Steve interrupts. "That's--that's why we fought. Because Zemo did." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam stares at him, and Steve smiles, a humorless little thing. "We can't do secrets anymore. They don't work, Sam. They just rip us apart." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They're quiet a long time and then Sam asks the question that he's be afraid to ask. "Steve, how do we come back from this?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve doesn't answer. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>There's something magical about Wakanda that is more than just a Black boy dreaming of a land hidden away where being Black was a blessing and not a curse. There is that, though, and every time they limp back to Wakanda, there's a little thrill of it, being here where the world is not allowed to touch, being here where he is not different and other, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Steve</span>
  </em>
  <span> is. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He likes T'Challa, even after a year of running and circling back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You are welcome here, my friends. But you may not hide here," T'Challa said, and he'd seen the way that Steve had stiffened, angry and defensive. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>T'Challa was a king with people he was beholden to, and unrest within his small kingdom, and giving sanctuary to a band of internationally wanted superheros was not politically possible, even if he was insane enough to want to. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But the borders opened, like clockwork, every six months and they came back to the beauty and wonder and magic, and for a week, he lost himself in it. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>The thing about being on the run is that they don't, much. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's mostly sitting in empty, boring safehouses waiting for word to move, grumpy because Steve drank all the milk and avoiding Wanda because she got downright bitchy when she didn't see Vision every week. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He spent a lot of time reading shitty scifi's that he'd acquired a taste for while Bucky still crashed his apartment, and when Steve's shoulders got tenser and tenser each time he saw Sam with one, he abandoned those for even shittier mysteries and thrillers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They never got the life of a spy and a spec op right. It was shitty research, is what it was. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But sometimes there wasn't a book to read or a fight to pick or a road to run down. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And for the first time since he spun through an endless desert sky, and watched his lover plummet to the ground--Sam couldn't hide. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not in work or the rush of adrenline or the fear of a fucking assassin sitting child-like on his couch. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurts</span>
  </em>
  <span>, is the thing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It hurts and he hates it and he thinks the others know that something is wrong--he wakes up shouting for Riley often enough, sits with tears dripping down his face enough, is </span>
  <em>
    <span>quiet</span>
  </em>
  <span> enough, that they </span>
  <em>
    <span>have</span>
  </em>
  <span> to know. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't say much about it though, and Steve says only, "There's nothing as horrible as being able to do nothing when they fall." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam stares at him and he smiles, soft and sad and holds Sam when he cries, and the spectre of Bucky in Sam's living room vanishes from the shitty safehouse, for just a while. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They go back to Wakanda because of Bucky. That was the deal T'Challa and Steve came to. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Every six months, the borders would open and they would be granted passage for one week, while Steve conferred with Shuri and the other scientists who monitored Bucky. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Steve would spend most of his time not with scientists sitting by the cryo tube where Bucky slept. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam had gone down, once, that first time, when he was still shaky from the Raft, outraged and lonely and scared. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He threw up when he saw the tube, though, and didn't go back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Instead he spent the week in Wakanda using secure channels to talk to his Mama and sisters, and once--a year after the shit went down in Germany--his baby niece was there. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He used the week to sleep in a bed where he wasn't terrified he'd be woken to sprint into the dark, a step ahead of Ross' team. Even with the nightmares of Riley falling, of Rhodey falling, of the fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>Chair</span>
  </em>
  <span> and blank eyes that should hold storms, he always slept better in the safety  of Wakanda than he did anywhere else but his apartment with Bucky down the hall. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wandered. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sometimes with Wanda, and sometimes alone, just himself, slipping into the streets and the open air market and the cafe's filled with fragrant teas and thick chocolates and smoke that made his eyes wander. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You could take one of the Dora," Shuri tells him, once and Sam smiled at the little princess. She reminds him of his sister, bright and fierce and beautiful. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I like seeing the country without any help, Princess. But I'd never turn away your company." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She snorts, the way she always does when she's particularly unimpressed with the Americans in her home, but she does take him out, a few days later, and he sees a side of Wakanda that feels real and gritty and elegant, all at once. She laughs when he burns his mouth on spicy meat they buy from a street vendor and smirks when he stares in wide-eyed shock at a fucking rhino, and takes him out of the city to a small village by a beautiful lake, where goats play in the long grass and the villagers smile at them, lazy and peaceful, and there's a tight pain in his gut, a longing he doesn't understand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"When our warriors have served too long and need a respite from the war--this is where they come," she says, softly. "It's a place of healing and peace. And it is open to you, always, Sam Wilson." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't need a respite," he says, the words springing up automatically, and Shuri doesn't argue with him, doesn't call him on his bullshit. She just links her arm through his and leads him through the quiet winding village. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There's a hut away from the others, and he stares at it for a long time, before Shuri says, "Why do you never visit him?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Because it hurts too much," he says without pausing to weigh his words. She's quiet, waiting, and he sighs. "Can we pet the goats?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shuri arches an eyebrow, but leads him to the kids, and he sinks into the grass as they scamper around him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I know what they did to him. But--Steve knows? But he wasn't there, dismantling HYDRA bases and he didn't </span>
  <em>
    <span>see</span>
  </em>
  <span> the blood smeared on the cryo tubes or the cells that were the size of a coffin where they shoved him. He didn't see the Chairs and listen to the scientists begging for their lives by offering up his." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That is not what this is," she says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I know that. But I can't see it. I just--I can't." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Do you love him?" she asks, and there's naked curiosity in her voice. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He goes still, and a goat stumbles into him, butting his side as he stares at a princess, blinking in the sunlight, and feeling like a dumbass. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because how the hell had this tiny princess he'd spent less than month with noticed what his team hadn’t, what he still hid from himself? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You should tell him," she says, instead of waiting for him to respond. "The hut, Falcon, is yours, for the next month. You may not think you are in need of respite--but you are. I think maybe you have been since your Riley died." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He flinches, and she stands, dusting her rear with her hands and says, gently, "You have never flown here, Sam Wilson. You are like a bird with broken wings. And I am fond of broken things--my brother is as well--but I have seen you. You are </span>
  <em>
    <span>glorious</span>
  </em>
  <span>, when you are not broken." </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She leaves him sitting there blinking in the sunshine, a goat sleeping in his lap and another nibbling on his shirt, and he doesn't move for a long time, until her transport has vanished back toward the city. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then he sighs down at the baby in his lap and says, "Guess we should go in, huh?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The goat, being a goat, doesn't answer. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sleeps there, and wakes screaming, but there's no one to hear him scream and there's no one to hear him sob, and he does, he gives himself up to his choking grief and guilt, and he thinks the surrender must be cleansing because when he sleeps again, he sleeps hard, one of the goats curled against his back and his dreams aren't heavy or troubled. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wakes to the scent of bacon and eggs and a goat nibbling on his hair. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's so familiar that he isn't that surprised to see Bucky standing in the kitchen. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looks beautiful. His hair is longer and wavy around his face, and the muscle he'd put on while in Buchrest had melted away, leaving him strong and slim and so fucking pretty, and Sam is an actual idiot because he was in love with this bastard, and he doesn’t even mind. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You hungry?" Bucky asks, and Sam nods, because what the hell else is he gonna do? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They eat while the goats bleat at each other and Sam thinks they're gonna need names--he can't keep calling them 'the goats'. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They wash up the dishes together, and Bucky follows when Sam wanders outside, down to the lake. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They walk in silence most of that first day, and fall asleep next to each other, a goat that Sam is calling Steve sleeping between them and there's a kind of grumpy rightness to that right there. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm sorry, you know," Bucky says, on the third day. Sam blinks at him over the top of his book, and Bucky frowns down at the ankle he's got his fingers wrapped loosely around. "I know leaving the way I did--it was a dick move. I get that. I'm sorry that I hurt you." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam is silent for a long time. Eventually, he says, "I know you are, sweetheart." </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't say that it's ok, because it wasn't. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't say that he's forgiven, because Sam is a spiteful, stubborn bastard. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't say that he's fine, because Bucky knows when Sam lies. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The truth is that it hurt, Bucky leaving. It hurt and it still does, and he's terrified that he'll wake up and find Bucky has melted into the darkness again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But the truth is, also, that he knows Bucky never wanted to hurt him. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Bucky kisses him after a week, while Sam is ranting about Steve being a reckless ass, a grin easy on his lips as he watches Sam, and it feels like the world falls away, with Bucky pressing against him, pinning him to the bed, and licking into his mouth. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They fuck there, while the afternoon rain falls, and the goats bleat in their pen and Bucky's mouth is soft and hot and worshipful, and his cock fills Sam up just right, makes his breath catch and sigh, and his hand twines with Sam's, grounding and familiar and perfect, and when he comes, Sam moans Bucky's name and Bucky hides in his neck, all teeth pressing and wet lips, and shudders against him. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It's easy. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Being with Bucky, here. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Neither are </span>
  <em>
    <span>fixed</span>
  </em>
  <span>, not really--there are times when Bucky's hand goes too tight and his face goes blank and times he murmurs Russian in the middle of a sentence. Shuri took the triggers out of his head, but it's not like she can take seventy years of trauma. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam wakes gasping and falling, Riley and Rhodey's names trapped in his throat, but Bucky holds him through it, soothes him with gentle hands and listens when Sam finally begins to talk about Riley. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's not that--recovery is never easy. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's the afternoons spent comfortable and quiet, it's Bucky's fingers looped around wrist or ankle or waist. It's him, fucking Sam and smiling bright and beautiful. It's chasing the goats and cooking. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's the peace. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I love you," Sam says, one night, when Bucky is dripping wet and scowling at Grant, tucked up under his arm, and the scent of chocolate is thick in the air. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I love you too, doll," he mutters, and stomps into the bathroom to wash the mud off Grant. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam smiles into his hot chocolate. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"It happened a lot, huh?" Steve says, a mild observation. He doesn't sound angry anymore, the Bucky shaped specter between them sleeping sprawled against Sam's chest. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The first time he came to me, I'd just gotten home. The Potomac was still on fire, man. And then--he never really quit. He just kept showing up, until I counted on it." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You're good for each other," Steve says, and there's a touch of longing and wistfulness in his voice that Sam can't answer. He's quiet, instead. "I'm glad you found each other," Steve says finally. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam is too. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~*~ </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He flies. He'll leave soon, the world is waiting and Bucky--Bucky won't. He'll stay here, with Steve and Grant and Rogers. And Sam will circle back, a homing pigeon coming to roost, a needle pointing north. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Philopatry, Riley told him once--it’s the instinct in birds that call them home. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He flies. He still dreams, sometimes, about Riley and Rhodey, about Bucky falling and blank eyes that should be filled with storms. He doesn't think that will ever stop. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He flies. He arches against the endless blue Wakandan sky, and below, Bucky waits, until he turns, like a homing bird, returning home. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sam follows.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
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